We’re on the brink of a government shutdown and affordable healthcare and the people who depend on it are at stake if massive cuts to healthcare and other programs go through. All elected officials must take responsibility for making sure our government works for working-class people, not just for billionaires and the politicians that serve them.
Healthcare is the heartbeat of North Carolina.
It is one of the top employing industries in the state, along with education. It’s a key driver of our economy, and the lifeline for our families. It’s the care for our grandparents, the research for diseases and chronic illnesses, the support for new moms and growing families, and the solution for prevention. Without healthcare, North Carolinians face early death, the constant threat of debt, and diminished quality of life for ourselves and our loved ones.
Healthcare is also something working people across North Carolina – including members of Down Home – have worked tooth and nail for so that everyone in our communities can have it. We did it back in 2023 when we worked tirelessly to win Medicaid expansion and health insurance access for more than 600,000 people, and we’re getting ready to do it again as we brace ourselves for the budget storm that is brewing ahead of us.
Right now, we are looking at a two pronged assault on access to health care that not only dismantles Medicaid programs but threatens to make affordable health care a thing of the past for working families. At the federal level, we are looking at the end of Medicaid expansion by 2027, the end of reduced lunch for our children in school, and the start of a purposeful years-long dismantling of North Carolina’s health care system. At the state level, our representatives failed yet again last week to pass a state budget that will give us the tools and resources to protect our communities from the disastrous impact this bill will have on us.
This summer, Congress passed a big, ugly budget that takes our hard-earned tax dollars away from our communities — our schools, our farmers, our hospitals — and gives it directly to the wealthy elite, ICE, and super-rich tech-billionaires. Our families are doing everything they can to get by, and we should not have to pay for tax breaks for the super-rich elite at the cost of our healthcare and quality of life.
Our families are doing everything they can to get by, and we should not have to pay for tax breaks for the super-rich elite at the cost of our healthcare and quality of life.
No one wants to own this disaster.
This billionaire tax cut budget is set to more than double the cost of our health insurance in three months, and Congress is at a standstill. Legislators who care about affordable healthcare are refusing to pass a government funding bill – unless it also includes the funds needed to keep our health costs from skyrocketing. If this action leads to a government shutdown, it is a testament to the power of working-class people demanding action. We won’t stand by while millions of us lose our healthcare. This is a crisis, and politicians are feeling the pressure. We need our government to work for us, and we insist on a deal that reopens our government by funding healthcare for working people, now. We hold every elected official, regardless of political party or office, responsible for working to achieve this.
Worse yet, no one wants to own this disaster, but we all see and know exactly who the holdup is here. Our politicians are playing in our face, pointing fingers at each other and showing that they’re willing to gamble away the money for North Carolina’s health care in exchange for tax breaks for their billionaire friends and a play for power.
Let us be clear: a government shutdown is a continuation of the efforts to dismantle and destroy government programs built at the will of the people that has been taking place at a breathtaking pace since the beginning of this year. It is the result of self-serving politicians who are serving the ultra-wealthy instead of the people who elected them. It will add to the hardship being faced by all of us who are trying to navigate life in the aftermath of these actions. And a shutdown can be stopped if those in congress choose to do the right thing – to ensure that affordable healthcare is available by fully funding Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
We deserve a government that works for us.
To every working person across North Carolina, we say: keep it up. We are shut down in part because you are saying no to the budget and yes to the things that matter to our communities. It will get resolved because we cannot be ignored. We deserve a government that works for us, not just for billionaires and politicians.
To our congressional members, we say: don’t budge till the billionaire buyout gets fixed. We need Congress to pass a budget that supports rural and small-town families and workers, farmers, and small business owners. Anything less is a betrayal of our communities.
- Protect affordable insurance by funding the Affordable Care Act, so that we can take care of ourselves and our families without worrying about next week’s rent.
- Return the $1 trillion you cut from federal Medicaid spending so we can keep our hospitals open, give our kids free lunch, and provide more people access to health insurance for the first time in their lives through the expansion program we won not even just two years ago.
- Replace the federal jobs, SBA loans, USDA loans, and essential services to our Tribal communities that you canceled and froze so that we can do what we do best and take care of our communities.
Congress must use our money that we paid in taxes to fund the programs that better our lives.
